2. Immediately afterward, start promoting Doug Jones in Alabama and reminding everyone of Roy Moore’s problems. That election is on December 12.

3. In the meantime, Net Neutrality. The FCC votes on December 14th. Protest, boost, research, do whatever you can.

I know #MeToo is important, I know Old Man Donald is still being a jerk, I know North Korea has a nuke, none of these are going to be dealt with before Christmas. There are three fronts to this fight: taxes, Alabama, FCC. These are the focal points. If we can win one of those, it’s going to have ramifications for the future. If we can win two, we’re in a pretty good place. We win all three, 2017 was a Good Year.

Taxes.

Doug Jones.

FCC.

Focus.

And then remind everyone to renew their healthcare. That deadline is December 15th.

We have grown too afraid of the consequences of impeachment and too complacent about the consequences of leaving an unfit president in office. If the worst happens, and [redacted]’s presidency results in calamity, we will have no excuse to make, no answer to give. This is an emergency. We should break the glass.

“As Senate Republicans scramble to gather 50 votes on a bill that would repeal key pieces of the Affordable Care Act and convert Medicaid into a shrinking block grant controlled by the states, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office announced Monday that it will not be able to fully evaluate the bill’s impact on premiums, the uninsured or the federal budget in the next two weeks. While promising a “preliminary assessment” of the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson legislation by early next week, the CBO noted that it does not have time to study how many people could lose their health insurance if the plan became law. “CBO will provide as much qualitative information as possible about the effects of the legislation, however CBO will not be able to provide point estimates of the effects on the deficit, health insurance coverage, or premiums for at least several weeks,” according to the CBO statement. Republicans do not have several weeks. Their ability to pass the repeal bill with only 50 votes—thus avoiding a Democratic filibuster—expires at the end of September.”

Not a single person was killed or permanently injured by Occupy Wall Street, and that lasted weeks. Not a single person was killed or permenently injured at Standing Rock, except for those injured by the violent police, and that gathering lasted for months. The right-wing throw one big rally – where the ideology itself, never forget, is extremely and dangerously violent – and 19 people end up in the hospital, 1 person is dead. Never once more should you equate the right and left. Never once fucking more. We are all antifa, now.

If your solution to some problem relies on “If everyone would just…” then you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At not time in the history of the universe has everyone just, and they’re not going to start now.

“As the sense of responsibility is always strongest, in proportion as it is undivided, it may be inferred that a single man would be most ready to attend to the force of those motives which might plead for a mitigation of the rigor of the law, and least apt to yield to considerations which were calculated to shelter a fit object of its vengeance. The reflection that the fate of a fellow-creature depended on his sole fiat, would naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution; the dread of being accused of weakness or connivance, would beget equal circumspection, though of a different kind.”

“To see why pardoning Arpaio would be so exceptional – and so bad – you have to start with the sheriff’s crime. Arpaio wasn’t convicted by a jury after a trial for violating some specific federal statute. Rather, he was convicted by a federal judge on the rather unusual charge of criminal contempt of court. Specifically, Arpaio was convicted this July by Judge Susan Bolton of willfully and intentionally violating an order issued to him in 2011 by a different federal judge, G. Murray Snow.

The order arose out of a civil suit against Arpaio brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, accusing him of violating the law by detaining undocumented immigrants simply for lacking legal status. Snow issued a preliminary injunction that ordered Arpaio to stop running so-called saturation patrols – police sweeps that essentially stopped people who looked Latino and detained those who were deemed undocumented. The basic idea was that the profiling, warrantless stops and detention were unconstitutional.

Yet despite the federal court’s order, Arpaio kept running the unlawful patrols for at least 18 months, and publicly acknowledged as much. Federal judges don’t much like it when their orders are flouted. Snow held extensive hearings in November 2015, and in July 2016 he issued a lengthy opinion finding Arpaio in civil contempt of court. Snow didn’t mince words. He wrote that the department’s “constitutional violations are broad in scope, involve its highest ranking command staff, and flow into its management of internal affairs investigations.” Crucially, Snow found that Arpaio’s violations had been intentional.

But a civil finding of intentionally violating a court order can also trigger a separate proceeding for criminal contempt of court. That’s what happened to Arpaio. To ensure that the judge whose orders were flouted wouldn’t be judging Arpaio criminally, the criminal contempt charges went to a different federal judge.

Judge Bolton convicted Arpaio of criminal contempt. She found he had “willfully violated” the federal court’s order “by failing to do anything to ensure his subordinates’ compliance and by directing them to continue to detain persons for whom no criminal charges could be filed.” And she held that Arpaio had “announced to the world and to his subordinates that he was going to continue business as usual no matter who said otherwise.” This is the crime that [redacted] is suggesting he might pardon: willful defiance of a federal judge’s lawful order to enforce the Constitution.”

“No mix of ego, inexperience, embarrassment or anything else can explain his behavior. It just can’t. He’s hiding bad acts. And the country is likely heading toward a major constitutional and political crisis because [redacted] is signaling that he will not allow the normal course of the law to apply to him – a challenge which puts the entire edifice of democratic government under threat.”

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) is already drafting articles of
impeachment related to Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, believing
there’s enough evidence of Trump’s obstruction of justice to begin an
impeachment inquiry (not to mention Trump’s blatant violation of the
Constitutions emoluments clause by profiting off his presidency, and much else).

But Democratic leaders are pushing back,
warning there aren’t enough facts to justify an impeachment inquiry at this point, and, in any event, such
an inquiry would politicize ongoing
congressional investigations.

Baloney.

Historically,
the three previous impeachment inquiries in the House (involving presidents
Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton) rested on less evidence of
obstruction of justice than is already publicly known about Trump.

Comey’s testimony to
Congress is itself more than enough – confirming that Trump demanded Comey’s loyalty, asked Comey to stop investigating Michael Flynn, repeatedly told Comey the FBI investigation was a “cloud” on his presidency, and asked
Comey to declare publicly that Trump wasn’t an object of the investigation

In addition, we have Trump’s interview
with Lester Holt on NBC and Trump’s subsequent meeting with Russian officials
in the Oval Office. In both instances, Trump connected his firing
of Comey with the Russian investigation.

Also bear in mind the
obstructions of justice that caused the House to impeach previous presidents concerned
issues far less serious than Trump’s possible collusion with a foreign power to
win election.

Democratic leaders say they don’t want to talk about impeachment now because they’re worried about politicizing the current
congressional investigations, which aren’t impeachment inquiries. Hello? Republicans have already politicized them.

The real reason Democratic leaders don’t want to seek an impeachment now is they know there’s zero
chance that Republicans, who now control both houses of Congress, would support such a move. So why engage in a purely symbolic gesture?

Democratic leaders figure that between now and the
midterm elections there will be even more revelations from non-partisan sources – future testimony by Trump operatives like Michael Flynn and
Roger Stone, early reports from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation,
and leaks to the press – that will build the case, and fuel more public outrage.

That outrage will give Democrats a strong chance of taking back the House and maybe even the Senate. Then they’ll really impeach Trump.

I can’t argue with the
political logic of Democratic leaders. And if their strategy will lead to
Trump’s ouster sooner than any other way, I’m all for it.

But here’s the problem. It’s not clear America can wait for the midterm elections, followed by what’s likely to be a long and drawn-out impeachment investigation, followed by a trial in the Senate. (Note that none of the presidents listed above was ever convicted by the Senate and thrown out of office.)

With each passing day, Donald Trump becomes a greater danger to America and the world. We don’t have time.

The advantage of introducing a bill of impeachment now – even attempting to do so – is that such an action might itself galvanize the vast majority of Americans who want Trump out of office. It could mobilize and energize people around the most important immediate issue facing the country.

Never underestimate the power of a public aroused to action. It is worth recalling that Nixon resigned of his own accord before the House had even voted out an impeachment resolution. The American public demanded it.

“I’m not even sure what the word is or if there is one. But the one I am struggling to find is the experience of not being remotely surprised by the President’s action and yet marveling that the expected action – or transgression in this case – has managed to find a new depth of awfulness to penetrate and explore.”

“By the time the results were certain, Clinton and her advisers felt that it was too late to make a speech; she wanted to consider carefully what she had to say, and went back and forth with her team about the stance to take toward [redacted]. When Schwerin and Rooney came to her suite at the Peninsula Hotel the next morning to go over the draft, Clinton was sitting in her bathrobe at the table. She had slept only briefly, but she was clear: She wanted to take a slightly more aggressive approach, focusing on the protection of democratic norms, and she wanted to emphasize the message to young girls, the passage that would become the heart of her speech. As the pair of writers left her room and walked down the hall, Rooney turned to Schwerin and said, “That’s a president.” Schwerin remembers: “Because here, in this incredibly difficult moment, she was thinking calmly and rationally about what the country needs to hear.” Schwerin said that until then he had held it together. “But I kind of lost it then.””